Module unit building structure and method of erecting it

ABSTRACT

A new building element is made of concrete or light weight materials, preferably of metal or plastic sheet material between which are sandwiched insulating materials, while the dimensions are within the limits of international standards of containers (the reference to containers is meant to relate to containers which are used in maritime transport and the sizes of which have been standardised in order to permit the unimpeded and easy transport on ordinary carriers on the roads, without interfering with traffic). According to the invention, I use building modules preferably of sandwich material, such modules being provided with flanges at those edges thereof which in the ready building are intended to extend in the vertical, the flanges of neighbouring elements being enclosed by channel like elements or slotted tubes, which are adapted to be cast out with concrete. The invention further relates to the method which comprises the steps of providing box shaped building elements with flanged edges, erecting such elements with the flanges extending in the vertical, slipping channel like elements in to the connected neighbouring flanges of the two elements, and casting concrete into the said channel elements.

Doriel MODULE UNIT BUILDING STRUCTURE AND METHOD OF ERECTING IT [76] Inventor: Joseph Doriel, 32 Remez St., Tel

Aviv, Israel [22] Filed: Oct. 17, 1973 [2|] Appl. No.: 407,245

{30] Foreign Application Priority Data Oct. 25, 1972 Israel .t 40658 [52] US. Cl. 52/79 [51] Int. Cl. r r r r t E04H 1/04 [58] Field of Search r r r A 52/79, 584, 435, 493

[56] References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 3,416,273 [2/1968 Stucky 52/79 3,470,660 [0/1969 Van der Lely r. 52/79 Primary Examiner.lohn E, Murtagh Attorney, Agent, or FirmBrowdy and Neimark [57] ABSTRACT A new building element is made of concrete or light Sept. 9, 1975 According to the invention, I use building modules preferably of sandwich material, such modules being provided with flanges at those edges thereof which in the ready building are intended to extend in the vertical, the flanges of neighbouring elements being enclosed by channel like elements or slotted tubes, which are adapted to be cast out with concrete.

The invention further relates to the method which comprises the steps of providing box shaped building elements with flanged edges, erecting such elements with the flanges extending in the vertical, slipping channel like elements in to the connected neighbouring flanges of the two elements, and casting concrete into the said channel elements.

4 Claims, 3 Drawing Figures UIE PATENTED SEP 9 I975 FIG.2

MODULE UNIT BUILDING STRUCTURE AND METHOD OF ERECTING IT BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION erected or a part of such room or a combination of rooms as part of a building.

In the building industry it is well known to use prefabricated building elements. These elements might be structural elements such as columns, beams and the like out of which a skeleton can be erected with the use of connecting means, a great number of which have been suggested and are actually used in practice. There is further known to use panels out of which the walls are made. These panels might be cast concrete, properly reinforced, or it is also known to use panels which are sandwich structures comprising plastics, wood gypsum and/or metal outer and inner wall skins between which an insulating layer of polyurethane or any other formable substance is sandwiched, thus affording the necessary heat insulation and also safeguard against sound penetrating into the rooms erected from such elements. With these elements, difficulties are encountered that although the elements may be manufacturedand actually are manufactured by more or less sophisticated industrial means, in a factorythey have to be transported to the building site and have to be assembled at the site. The assembling in some cases may be performed by unskilled labour, but in most cases due to the accuracy which is required, skilled and even highly skilled labour is required.

It has therefore been proposed to make spatial units i.e. boxlike elements which are placed beside one another and on top of one another, each of these boxlike elements forming a room or part of it. While in this method a much greater part of work to be done can be performed in the factory (as compared to the system referred to above) another difficulty is encountered; the box shaped units are of large volume and in most cases special carriers have to be provided in order to convey these units to the building site. M reover, in many cases these units are of great width so that the conveyance is hardly possible on ordinary roads and during hours of traffic so that either the roads have to be closed for general traffic or the units have to be conveyed during the dead hours of night, under special road-use license, both of which means additional cost, thus very much increasing the cost of the building. It might even be said that what is economised by resorting to prefabricated elements might be last due to cost of transport.

OBJECT OF THE INVENTION The present invention will do away at least to a great part with the disadvantages referred to above and it is the object of the invention to provide means permitting the creating of buildings from prefabricated parts which can be easily conveyed to the building site and which can be assembled and set up by unskilled labour with the supervision of one or two skilled labourers for a building project.

SHORT DESCRIPTION OF DRAWING In FIG. I there is shown an assembly of several prefabricated modules according to the invention.

FIG. 2 shows on a larger scale the connection between two modules while FIG. 3 is a section on line IIIIII of FIG. 2.

DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENT Turning first to FIG. 1 there is erected a building which comprises three floors. The ground floor is composed of four or more juxtaposed modules marked a, b, c and d. The floor above is constituted equally of four modules marked a, b, c and d. The top floor in a similar manner comprises four modules a b 0 J. The modules are provided with flanges indicated by the numeral l which flanges extend into vertical channel members 2 connecting all the modules and forming the skeleton of the building as will be described.

Turning now to FIG. 3, it is assumed that the modules are made of panels indicated by the numerals l0 and 11 which panels form part of the juxtaposed modules. The panels or the modules forming boxlike structures, as already indicated, may be of whatever material. In the example shown, it is assumed that the modules comprise layer of concrete 12 which may be light concrete which at the inside of the room formed by the module has wall covering 13 of timber or plastics or whatever other materials. Between the concrete l2 and the wall covering 13 is held in each module a vertically disposed angle rail 14 which extends beyond the thick ness of the concrete layer 12 forming at the outside of the structure a flange 130. If now, two such boxlike modules are placed beside one another with the interposition ofa strip of felt or the like material for tightening purposes, screw belts 15 can be passed through a proper hole in the flange 13a and secured in the customary manner by washers l6 and nut 17.

However, before passing the screw bolt 15 through the holes in the flanges, angle irons l8 and 19 are placed beside the said flanges so that the screw bolt I5 secures these angles to the flanges. Now channellike members 20 which in the present example is a four sided slotted hollow channel of sheet material is slipped from above onto the assembly of flanges held together by the screw bolts 15. The slotted channel 20 is stiffened by cross bars 21 which may be in the form of lattice work extending from top to bottom of the channel 20. Finally, concrete is poured into the channel member 20 enclosing the flanges 13a and the screw belt 15.

It goes without saying that any number of screw bolts, according to the building may be employed, there might be one or two but even more in each of the superposed modules. It depends on the judgement of the person supervising the arrangement and setting up of the modules to decide on the number of connecting screw bolts 15.

It will be understood that by means of the new method, there will be attained the speedy erection of buildings the elements of which can be easily conveyed to the building site, the walls of the modules forming the walls of the building while the cast out channellike element constitutes the skeleton or framework of the building.

It will be seen that in this way buildings of several floors and containing a number of juxtaposed modules or rooms on each floor can be assembled in the short time and without use of skilled labour apart from the supervising worker. The concrete filled channels form the skeleton of the building which is now capable of withstanding all reasonable stresses to which a building of this kind might be subjected.

It should be understood, that while I prefer to make the new elements of the materials indicated above and I prefer to remain with in the dimensions of containers, this does not constitute an essential part of the invention. Where it becomes necessary to resort to materials other than those indicated in the present specification and where it is possible due to leading conditions to convey elements of a size larger than international container sizes, the invention would apply also to such cases. It should be understood that the basic idea of the invention relates to the constructional features to which reference will be had later on.

What is claimed is:

l. A prefabricated boxlike module unit containing a plurality of modules, each module comprising:

a floor member;

two pairs of vertically extending rectangular wall members, each wall member having four corners, each pair of wall members affixed to opposite sides of said floor member forming a hollow parallelepia plurality of vertically extending flanges, each of said flanges extending outwardly from a comer of a said wall member parallel to said floor member so that each of said flanges lies in close proximity to an adjacent flange thereby forming neighboring flanges;

a slidably movable vertically extending rectangular channel member having walls enclosing vertically aligned neighboring flanges; and

a plurality of cross bars extending inwardly from one of the walls of said channel member to another wall of said channel member;

whereby said channel member, flanges, and cross bars form a solid reinforcement for a concrete mixture which is poured into said channel member.

2. The prefabricated boxlike module according to claim 1, wherein said neighboring flanges are connected together by screw bolts.

3. The prefabricated boxlike module according to claim 1, wherein said channel member is slotted.

4. The prefabricated boxlike module according to claim 1, wherein the walls of said module comprise two or more layers, one of which is an insulating layer. 

1. A prefabricated boxlike module unit containing a plurality of modules, each module comprising: a floor member; two pairs of vertically extending rectangular wall members, each wall member having four corners, each pair of wall members affixed to opposite sides of said floor member forming a hollow parallelepiped; a plurality of vertically extending flanges, each of said flanges extending outwardly from a corner of a said wall member parallel to said floor member so that each of said flanges lies in close proximity to an adjacent flange thereby forming neighboring flanges; a slidably movable vertically extending rectangular channel member having walls enclosing vertically aligned neighboring flanges; and a plurality of cross bars extending inwardly from one of the walls of said channel member to another wall of said channel member; whereby said channel member, flanges, and cross bars form a solid reinforcement for a concrete mixture which is poured into said channel member.
 2. The prefabricated boxlike module according to claim 1, wherein said neighboring flanges are connected together by screw bolts.
 3. The prefabricated boxlike module according to claim 1, wherein said channel member is slotted.
 4. The prefabricated boxlike module according to claim 1, wherein the walls of said module comprise two or more layers, one of which is an insulating layer. 